


Tesco's Tesla

by GrayceAdamsArchive



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Developing Relationship, Dogs, English Bulldogs, Fluff, Gen, M/M, One Shot, Puppies, pre slash, puppy fluff, pure fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-29
Updated: 2014-07-29
Packaged: 2018-02-10 22:08:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,892
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2042022
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GrayceAdamsArchive/pseuds/GrayceAdamsArchive
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He wasn’t quite sure what had possessed him to do it. There were a million reasons why he shouldn’t, over half of them taking up residence in their kitchen right this very moment. But John went and did it anyway. </p><p>There was a cardboard box in front of the Tesco, with big black letters on one of the flaps reading “FREE TO GOOD HOME.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tesco's Tesla

**Author's Note:**

> Chinese version here: http://archiveofourown.org/works/2070066  
> (It's the first time one of my fics has ever been translated, so go give this lovely some kudos for doing this! <3)

He wasn’t quite sure what had possessed him to do it. There were a million reasons why he shouldn’t, over half of them taking up residence in their kitchen right this very moment. But John went and did it anyway.

There was a cardboard box in front of the Tesco, with big black letters on one of the flaps reading “ **FREE TO GOOD HOME**.” He resisted the temptation to peek on his way in, since there were three little girls crowded around the box cooing and giggling while their parents tried to drag them away in vain. John bought the beans and bread and milk he’d come for since they’d run out of the two former and the latter had been compromised by an experiment. The box was still there when John left the Tesco, though the family that had been lollygagging about it was gone. Unable to resist his curiosity, John peered inside.

Inside was a singular puppy, brown and white, that looked to be made up more of wrinkles and stubby legs than anything else. The little creature was snuffling around at the bottom of the box, whining quietly. When it spotted John looking down into the box, the puppy wiggled its whole body, whining and then yapping loudly in an effort to maintain his attention. John felt a smile cross his lips, unable to resist the pudgy little fellow’s inherent puppy charm.

The puppy yapped up at him and bounced around in the bottom of the box, trying to get John to play. The doctor grinned and gave in, reaching into the box to scratch at the puppy’s head. It’d been a long time since John had had a dog. He’d never thought about getting one since Sherlock had come into his life, for fear the man would experiment on the poor animal. That was, of course, before Mycroft had dropped the Redbeard story one afternoon, much to Sherlock’s embarrassment and anger. John would never have taken the younger Holmes for a dog person, but really, Sherlock still surprised him on a daily basis. The man having a history of dog-loving really wasn’t the worst thing he’d found out about him through his nosy brother.

John sighed and patted the puppy on the head. He could never bring a puppy back to Baker Street. Sherlock had made it clear that he didn’t want a replacement for his childhood pet, and he had no idea how Mrs. Hudson would feel about a bulldog in the house.

“Sorry, little mate,” John said, making sure he had all his shopping before making to leave the Tesco behind and head home. He was barely three steps away when it started to rain. John stopped and sighed, hanging his head and pursing his lips. The puppy whined in the box behind him, and John let out a long breath before turning about face and marching back up to the box. The english bulldog puppy inside looked up at him with huge brown eyes, wiggling its stubby tail in a painfully hopeful manner.

“Oh, bollocks,” John swore, reaching in and grabbing the puppy out of the box and tucking him inside his coat. It wasn’t like he could leave the helpless animal out in the rain to freeze and die.

And that was how John Watson found himself hurrying back to 221 Baker Street with one arm full of groceries and the other focused on keeping a squirming puppy inside his jacket.

~oOo~

Sherlock was laying on the couch in his thinking pose when John came upstairs, and the detective didn’t even stir as John huffed and puffed and cursed his way into the kitchen, dropping the groceries onto the miraculously clear table and stuffing the squirming dog back down into his coat to hide it. The doctor glanced back over to where Sherlock was laying on the couch, oblivious to the world outside his own head. With a mischievous grin, John grabbed the nearest thing he could turn into a bow (some long leftover strips of fabric that Sherlock had needed for an experiment a few weeks ago) and managed to wrangle the puppy into a sloppy headbow.

Sherlock didn’t even acknowledge John as he came closer, didn’t suspect a thing until John dropped the squirming, panting puppy on his chest. The detective startled and nearly threw the dog off him as he came out of his mind palace to stare at the small furry creature sitting on his chest with a bow on its head.

“John….” Sherlock said slowly, looking over to where the doctor was waiting eagerly by the coffee table. “Whose dog is this?”

“Ours,” John said, grinning. “Got him by the Tesco. I thought….well. Didn’t think too much about it, I suppose. But he was the last one, and it was starting to rain, so I...yeah. He’s our dog.” Sherlock stared at him as if he’d gone mad.

“You got us a dog,” he repeated slowly, as if he couldn’t quite believe that John was serious.

“Yeah. I’ll get him all the stuff he needs when the rain lets up, and take him to a vet tomorrow, and we can...decide…..on a name…? Sherlock?” John slowly trailed off as the detective sat up and placed the puppy on the floor as quickly as possible, an unreadable look on his face. The puppy didn’t seem to mind, putting his nose to the floor and sniffing around curiously and eventually squirming his way out of the bow.

“I never said I wanted a dog,” Sherlock said, his voice flat and stiff as he stared at the bundle of brown and white wrinkles exploring their living room. John swallowed and shoved his hands into his pockets.

“Yeah, I know,” John chewed his lip and sighed. “I...yeah. Okay. I’ll just…..” John cleared his throat awkwardly and backed his way into the kitchen, putting the kettle on as a weak excuse for his hasty retreat. Well, shit. This was exactly what he hadn’t wanted to happen. What universe had his head been in, where he thought bringing home a puppy to Sherlock Holmes was a good idea?

Making two cups of tea on autopilot, John also put away the few groceries he’d bought and then made his way back out into the sitting room with their tea, intent on telling Sherlock that he’d find a new home for the puppy as soon as possible.

Instead, he stopped dead in his tracks, a cup of tea in each hand and mouth hanging open, to see Sherlock Holmes sitting on the edge of the couch peering down at the puppy, who was sitting at his feet staring back up at him. The puppy wiggled happily under the detective’s scrutiny, doing that silly bounce and spin that happy dogs do when they’re excited. Sherlock smiled softly, a sweet smile that John had never seen before, reaching down with one large hand to scoop the pup up and examine him more closely. The dog licked his nose and face, and Sherlock laughed, quiet and deep, and John felt his heart melt. There was no way he’d ever be able to give away the dog now.

John set Sherlock’s tea down on the coffee table next to him, and the detective startled, turning a rather fetching shade of pink at having been caught out in a vulnerable moment. Clearing his throat, Sherlock set the puppy back down and picked up his tea as John settled into his chair. The little bulldog bounced across the floor to pounce on the doctor’s feet, and John giggled and rolled the puppy over with his toes and rubbed the little rascal’s belly.

“A dog, John,” Sherlock mused. “How do you still surprise me, even after all this time?”

“What d’you mean?” John asked absently, watching the puppy chew on the toe of his sock. They’d have to discourage that habit pretty quickly. John lost enough of his socks to Sherlock’s mad experiments that he didn’t need the dog eating them, too. He’d go bankrupt just buying new socks to replace the ruined ones.

The detective shook his head and sipped his tea before finally setting it aside to call the puppy to him, watching it scramble to its feet and bound over to him with a fond, but also bittersweet, smile on his face.

“Mendeleev,” Sherlock said slowly, scratching the pup behind his ears.

“Medewhat?” John said, raising his eyebrows.

“Dmitri Mendeleev,” Sherlock repeated. “Russian chemist and inventor. He formulated the periodic law and created one of the first few periodic table of elements.”

“Mendeleev is quite a mouthful,” John commented as Sherlock scooped the puppy back up into his lap to cuddle it in an uncharacteristic display of affection.

“Mmm,” Sherlock mused. “Well, we’re certainly not calling him ‘Fido.’” John grinned.

“He looks like a Teddy to me,” he said, and Sherlock gave him a look of mild affrontation.

“Common, boring.”

“Well, why don’t you pick a better name for him, Einstein,” John grumbled good-naturedly.

“Tesla. Nikola Tesla,” Sherlock said, letting the puppy squirm out of his grip and land on the floor with a light thud.

“Nick! Here, Nick!” John called, only to be stoutly ignored by the puppy, who was sniffing eagerly at the underside of Sherlock’s chair. The detective rolled his eyes and leaned down to pat his hand against the rug.

“Tesla,” he called, and the pup perked up and then came running when Sherlock patted his hand again.

“Oh, sure, he goes to you,” John rolled his eyes.

“That’s because I didn’t call him ‘Nick,’” Sherlock said smugly, rubbing the dog’s belly as reward.

“I can’t believe we’re calling our dog Tesla,” John said, scooping up Sherlock’s empty cup and carrying both to the sink to rinse them.

The doctor nearly jumped out of his skin when he turned to find Sherlock standing right behind him, puppy cradled in his arms. The two men stared at each other for a moment before Sherlock finally spoke.

“Thank you, John,” he said, glancing down at the puppy awkwardly. John felt his features soften as the detective shuffled awkwardly, unused to displaying gratitude or affection.

“You’re welcome, Sherlock.” And for a moment, everything in 221b was perfect.

Of course, that moment quickly ended once John discovered that Tesla learned fast (“He’s a remarkably smart dog, John!” “Everyone thinks their dog is the smartest dog in the world, Sherlock!”), and that included learning how to climb the stairs and leave a smelly present in the doctor’s room if John didn’t take him for his morning walk early enough, and that no matter how well he hid them, Tesla always managed to get ahold of one of his socks and turn it into a chew toy.

But when it became commonplace for Sherlock to lay stretched out on the sofa with Tesla sprawled on his long midsection, snoring loudly through his squashed face, and John became brave enough to lift Sherlock’s feet and sit with them in his lap in order to be closer to the two living beings he cared about most in the world, John found that perfect moment again. And he found it, again and again, for many years after the day he impulsively decided to bring home a wiggly little puppy to 221 Baker Street.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Just a little ficlet I hashed out in about an hour because I was bored and felt like I needed some fluff. So here's some fluff. I'm thinking about making it a series? But I'm not sure. May just leave it as the one-shot. :) Let me know what you think! Comments are my lifeblood and kudos my heartbeat.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [来自乐购的特斯拉](https://archiveofourown.org/works/2070066) by [shawnordaisy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/shawnordaisy/pseuds/shawnordaisy)




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